November 18th, 2009:

Nature Biotechnology has an article well worth checking out (if you have journal access anyway) about the story of biotech wheat. No genetically engineered wheat is commercially grown today, nor has it been in the past. Monsanto came close to releasing an herbicide tolerant variety several years ago, but didn’t because of fear that American farmers would lose valuable markets for our wheat exports. I speculated that genetically engineered wheat runs into more consumer opposition because we eat more wheat in recognizable forms (mostly bread and pasta) than we do crops like corn, soybeans, and canola.

Anyway, two new developments seem to have prompted this article. (more…)

I’ve got a couple of indirect ways of estimating changes in the number of subscribers to my RSS feed, and from my, very, VERY rough, estimates, it looks like it’s been increasing a lot faster than actual click-throughs to articles. Even if you read only one post and actually find a bit of science that excites you, I’ve done something completely worthwhile.

However, I did want to give everyone a chance, both new subscribers and regulars (has this site been around long enough to have regulars?) to let me know what kind of information drew you to this site, and/or what you’re interested in reading about.

There are so many things I’d love to write about but realistically I’ve only got time to write a couple of posts a day (being a grad student is actually a lot of work, and until recently I’ve always been the sort of person who needs to spend a couple of hours a day relaxing/decompressing/.) So if there’s anything in particular you’ve enjoyed reading about on this site, speak up!

That’s not a demand, it’s not even a request, just an open invitation.